Murder Of Gay Student A Warning Against Homophobic Rhetoric

October 17, 1998

Matthew Shepard's murder horrified and shocked people around the nation. The killing should also energize Americans into changing their laws, and their attitudes, about homosexuals.

The 21-year-old Laramie, Wyo., college student _ only 5 feet 2 and 105 pounds _ was beaten, pistol-whipped, robbed of his wallet and shoes, burned and strung up on a roadside fence like a human scarecrow. Making the crime even worse was the apparent motivation. One witness says one of two attackers was enraged after Shepard, a homosexual, flirted with him at a bar. Another witness says his attackers first pretended to be gay to lure him away.

Afterward the crime, two gay organizations received anonymous e-mail messages applauding the killing and saying, ``I hope it happens more often.''

Police charged Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKenney, 22, with murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Their girlfriends, Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price, 18, were charged with being accessories after the fact, by dumping bloody clothing and lying to cover up the crime. The women quoted the men as making anti-gay remarks during the crime.

Shepard's blood is not only on the hands of his attackers. It also stains those who, by word, thought or deed, have demonized homosexuals as evil, mentally ill, morally unfit, perverted, despised societal outcasts who are somehow less than human.

His blood smears those who would try to justify anti-gay hostility on religious grounds.

And his blood can never be washed away from those who have heated to boiling a national climate of anti-gay intolerance and bigotry that has led to numerous hate crimes.

Think it can't happen here? Think again. Across South Florida in recent years, homosexuals have been targets of bias, beatings and even killings. Miami police, now investigating two recent murders of gay men in the same neighborhood, are considering the possibility they were murdered because they were homosexual.

Aggressive prosecution of this or any other crime directed at someone because of sexual orientation can help punish the guilty and deter other offenders.

Shepard's death must not be in vain. Let it serve as a loud national wake-up call about the evils of homophobia, the exaggerated, irrational fear, hatred, intolerance and bias directed at homosexuals.

Let his death also prod reluctant lawmakers to include homosexuals among other historically disadvantaged minority groups who require and deserve protection by federal and state laws punishing discrimination and ``hate crimes.'' (Later this month, Miami-Dade County commissioners will reconsider a previous vote to reject adding gays to an ordinance banning discrimination in housing, finance, employment and public accommodations.)

And let his death encourage people to erase hate from their hearts. Tolerance, acceptance, a ``live and let live'' attitude and common human decency are called for.